“Teaching the history of the Shoah is fundamental but it is not the only way to combat it,” says a historian

Despite testimonies and history lessons, anti-Semitism is still alive and well in France. France 2 is rebroadcasting the long documentary “Shoah” by Claude Lanzmann on Tuesday evening. “It’s the first film that gets to the heart of the process of destruction,” explains historian Tal Bruttmann

On the occasion of the Day of Remembrance of Genocides and Crimes Against Humanity, France Télévisions is programming on France 2 Tuesday January 30 from 9 p.m., Holocaustthe 9:30-hour long documentary directed by Claude Lanzmann, originally released in 1985 and which had a major role in disseminating the memory of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War.

In the context of the rise in anti-Semitic acts in France, and while this “We have been teaching against the Shoah for 70 years and [qu’]we teach it better and better”the historian Tal Bruttmann believes that it “we need to think about how to combat anti-Semitism”. According to him, “Teaching the history of the Shoah is fundamental, but it is not the only way to combat anti-Semitism.”

franceinfo: How is this film a must-see monument?

Tal Bruttmann: It is the first film which goes to the heart of the process of destruction and which tries – and 30 years later we can realize that it has not yet achieved its goal – to explain an enormous misunderstanding which has persisted since 1945 , which is the confusion between Nazi violence in the concentration camps, a subject in its own right, and the process of destruction of the Jews which took place in other places [les “Gaswagen” (camions à gaz), les camps de la mort, le ghetto de Varsovie, comme montré dans le documentaire -Ndlr]. However, since 45, there has been confusion about this and it is believed that the Jews were sent to concentration camps. Lanzmann managed to put together a 9.5 hour film which questions those who were at the heart of this process and who were elsewhere, in other places which are very largely unknown, particularly for us in France, since most of the process is took place in Eastern Europe.

Soon there will be no one left to bear witness to these horrors. How do we pass on the memory of the camps and Nazi atrocities?

It is not so much the memory as the history that must be transmitted. Memory is something else again. There is no obligation for people to remember an event that would not interest them if they are not interested. This question which has been asked for decades, in fact, from my point of view, it is inappropriate because we always continue to make the history of Rome, of Athens, of ancient Egypt, 2,000 years or 2 500 years after the event. So, the disappearance of the witnesses will indicate that we are moving into another historical sequence, but this history, its importance, both memorial and political, since we live in a continent which was built by rejection of this which occurred during the Second World War, it remains very important and it is likely to continue.

When you look at the younger generations today, do you feel like they realize what happened?

Not only do they not realize what happened, but it also shows that the idea since 1945 that the Shoah would have put an end to anti-Semitism, because we would have become aware of where this leads, is something false. Obviously, teaching the history of the Shoah is fundamental, but it is not the only way to combat anti-Semitism. And what is happening today with us in France [la montée des actes antisémites, en particulier depuis le l’attaque du Hamas le 7 octobre – Ndlr] shows that we need to think about how to combat anti-Semitism, or other racism, by asking what needs to be done. We have been teaching against the Shoah for 70 years and we are teaching it better and better. And yet, we have this result before our eyes. Anti-Semitism is expressed in a virulent way today.